1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical and electronic circuits and systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for reducing intermodulation distortion.
2. Description of the Related Art
Intermodulation distortion is a major problem in many electronic circuits, particularly for radar receivers. Receivers typically include several non-linear components, such as amplifiers and mixers, which produce intermodulation distortion whenever more than one frequency is present in the input signal. The greater the non-linearity of the device, the higher the intermodulation created. This effect is usually measured by the third order intercept point (IP3) of the device.
Distortion can be reduced by using higher linearity components such as high power amplifiers, but greater linearity typically requires larger devices, higher power, and greater cost. An alternative solution for reducing intermodulation distortion is to employ distortion cancellation techniques such as feedforward cancellation or predistortion modulation. These approaches, however, typically require large, complex circuitry and can often add to the noise figure of the system.
Hence, a need exists in the art for an improved system or method for reducing intermodulation distortion that offers better performance and less complexity than prior art approaches.